


Paper heroes

by salsa_de_zarigueya



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Cravings, Hypersexual Disorder, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, SEP era, clingy jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17838275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salsa_de_zarigueya/pseuds/salsa_de_zarigueya
Summary: "This is the fourth roommate change he’s had in the three months he’s spent on SEP.Gabriel gave up on remembering the soldier’s numbers after the first two, much less asking for names."For R76 week.





	Paper heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: we can be heroes / SEP
> 
> Big thanks to whiteshadeopale for the beta'ing!

 

Gabriel can’t recall the last time he had a normal cycle of sleep.

 

He has bursts of energy during the day thanks to the cocktail of meds and injections the doctors serve him, but that energy leaves his body the moment they pull the needles from his arms. There have been times where he had to be taken to his room in a wheelchair.

 

Right now he is about to pass out, he can feel it. It’s been a particularly long day: they increased his dose and started testing on him twice a day due to the good results he brought during the previous phase. _Good lab rat_ , he thought. His old man would be surprised, after calling him ‘good for nothing’ for so long.

 

“ _Ugh_ — _ah_ —”

 

If only that new recruit could keep his mouth shut.

 

Gabriel tosses and turns, pressing the pillow over his head. He still can hear it though; the hectic breathing, the whisper of the sheets when the guy moves. He’s become sensitive to small stimuli and even the sound of his breathing was loud enough to keep him up.

 

_At least he hasn’t started crying._

 

This is the fourth roommate change he’s had in the three months he’s spent on SEP. His two first roommates struggled with the medication during the first weeks and passed after a month, the third passed after a week, while the last one spent his first night writhing in agony until he started to convulse due a sudden drop in blood pressure. He didn’t make it to the next day. 

 

Gabriel gave up on remembering the soldier’s numbers after the first two, much less asking for names.

 

“W—Wa—.”

 

“What?” Gabriel asks unintentionally, too late realizing he’s answered.

 

Not a single word comes to him and he wonders if the guy finally fell asleep —or died— until he hears a fits of coughing, followed by a choked petition.

 

“W—ater.”

 

Once he realizes there is no point in pretending he was asleep, Gabriel rolls on his side and gets off the bunk bed. He lands heavily on his feet, lumbers across the room and reaches the small refrigerator in the corner. He picks a bottle of water and goes back to the bed, knee sinking into the mattress and startling the twitching body above the sheets.

 

“Here.”

 

The soldier raises his head at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, moving sluggishly, similar to some form of delayed tropism.

 

Then his eyes open.

 

Years later, Gabriel would still remember those eyes. They would look at him through different stages on his life: under the spotlight during ceremonies and in the darkness of a fancy hotel room while they celebrated his promotion.

 

Those would also be the same eyes looking at him before everything came down.  

 

* * *

 

To his surprise, soldier number seventy six makes it through the night.

 

And just because of that, Gabriel makes the effort to remember his number.

 

“Good morning.”

 

Cheeks stuffed with food as he chews,  seventy-six barely manages to mouth a ‘morning’ back. There are crumbs of bread around his mouth and a stain of sauce on his shirt. The image is familiar enough to make Gabriel smile, it brought memories of the day after his first injections: he had been starving.

Gabriel points his own mouth “You have something there.”

 

Blood rushing to his face, seventy-six looks away and rubs a hand over his mouth, then cleans his sticky fingers on his pants.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Everything tastes better after the first injections, right?” he points, smearing butter over his toast. “It also smells better.”

 

“It does.” Seventy-six grabs a muffin and studies its texture, “I didn’t like the food here the first day.”

 

“You need to eat twice as much now to keep up with the metabolic changes on your body.” Gabriel takes a bite of his toast. “Until your body adapts of course, then your appetite will go back to normal. You’ll also have a lot of energy to spare now so make sure you hit the training room before going to bed or you won’t be able to sleep at all.”

 

The mention of sleep seems to bring bitter memories to the soldier, who grimaces and looks down at his plate. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

 

“Because of last night?” Gabriel snorts. “It’s fine, the pain will go away eventually.” _If you make it through_ he wants to add, but doesn’t.

 

Before leaving the table, he gets asked for his name. Gabriel does give away his but doesn’t ask back.

 

“I’m Jack.”

 

He introduces himself anyway.

 

* * *

 

Jack insists on chatting with him every night, as if missing human interaction. Gabriel doesn't miss it, after getting used to have the room to himself with all his previous partners passing during the night. He perfectly recalls waking up to the nurses covering up the bodies and taking them out while he stayed still and pretended to be asleep.

 

They were all incredible fragile, all paper heroes.

 

And now he has this guy with golden hair and bright blue eyes looming around him, cheerfully chatting with him about anything that went through his mind. It ruffled his feathers the first few days but eventually Gabriel came to accept Jack's personality. He used to be like that in the past himself, but ended up closing off any interaction due the nature of the program. Gabriel was aware it was a miracle he made it to the end of the day.

 

Another miracle happened to be Jack walking into his room after another series of injections, paler and shaky as a leaf on the wind, but a breathing being.

 

* * *

 

When Jack comes back from taking a shower, hair damp, towel around his neck, and quiet as a mouse, Gabriel can tell something is off. Jack wasn’t a quiet person and could talk for hours.

 

“You okay?” he asks, stopping his stretching.

 

Pressing the towel against his face, Jack sighs heavily. “Yeah, I— just—” he gulps, his face red as a cherry. He nervously looks behind him and then back at Gabriel, “There were two guys in the bathroom—”

 

“It’s the men’s bathrooms, what were you expecting?”

 

“I know! I mean, they were—” Jack makes a vague gesture with his hands, “busy.”

“Oh.” Gabriel scratches the back of his head, pursing his lips, “You mean they were fucking?” He rolls his eyes. “These damn rookies could stick to their rooms.” He goes back to his exercises. “You’ll get used to it.”

 

The towel slides from Jack’s shoulders, hitting the floor. He gasps, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of the water. “Used to it?” Jack tilts his head, eyes fixed on Gabriel. “Is it… common?”

 

“Yeah, especially with the rookies.” Gabriel strokes his facial hair, “Though the old ones like to take advantage of them. You know, with the excuse of helping them.” He looks up at Jack, smirking, “Try not to hit the showers if you’re not feeling quite yourself.”

 

Dropping next to Gabriel, Jack asks, genuinely curious, “What do you mean?”

 

“Considering the huge changes on our hormone levels, there are side effects.” Gabriel shrugs, a smile dancing on his lips, “Toss a bunch of muscular men with high levels of testosterone in small facilities and you got potential orgies in the bathrooms.” He smiles at Jack and pats his shoulder. “Happens to all of us, don’t feel bad. Half of the soldiers here are straight, like myself, but…you know,” he sighs, rubbing his nape, “Some people do it out of desire and others just to feel good. You know how painful the injections are.” Gabriel rises from the floor and gets his own stuff to take a shower. “If you feel like you need to do it, go for it. Nobody is going to judge you, what year do you think it is?”

 

“Have you?”

 

“Hm?” Gabriel stops in his tracks, looking back at Jack whose  cheeks are still stained with red.

 

“Have you done it, with other people here?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel looks up, calculating, “But it’s been a while, I just did it the first months; then I got used to the doses and my libido normalized.” He arches his eyebrows, a smile pulling from his lips. “Why you asking?”

 

“Nothing, I just—!” Jack shakes his hands, making Gabriel laugh. “I was just curious.”

 

“You can always ask. I could recommend you someone if you want.” Gabriel playfully offers, making a obscene gesture with his hands. “There are some pretty good guys here; clench so tight you won’t even notice you are fucking a man. You just have to close your eyes and—”

 

“I’m gay.”

 

Gabriel stops. He tilts his head and realizes Jack is no longer blushing, but looking serious, almost tense. Probably fearing his reaction and tired of having to keep that a secret for so long.    

 

“Cool,” Gabriel gives a thumbs-up. “Then you don’t have to pretend.”

 

A faint smile on his lips and Jack finally goes back to being his normal cheery self.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Jack doesn’t bring up the topic again, and doesn’t ask Gabriel to recommend him someone. He manages to go through his first months on SEP without any visible symptom of hypersexuality.

 

But sometimes, when Gabriel pretends to be asleep and ignores Jack’s calls during the night, he can hear his breath becoming rapid and the mattress creaking.

 

He thought Jack was just being shy.

* * *

 

“My back is killing me.”

 

Jack looks up from his tablet for a moment, resting on the nest of pillows laid on the floor. By the way his expression changes, Gabriel can tell he noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his pained expression as he moves.

 

“You keep pushing yourself too hard.”

 

“I have to...” he starts, dragging his hands over his face. “The injections shot up my adrenaline and if I don’t spend the extra energy in some activity I spend the night tossing and turning.” He drops over Jack’s mattress, too tired to climb up to his own bed. “Would you lend me your bed tonight?”

 

Jack snorts, “You’re already there.” He goes back to his test, trying to memorize the series of symbols exposed to then trying to replicate it. It’s soothing and helps him to work his mind considering the amount of time he spends training his body. The doctors encouraged him to try his memory since a lot of soldiers seemed to suffer from short lapses of memory loss due the meds. “I can give you a massage,” Jack offers after a moment.

 

As tired as he is, face sinking in the pillow, Gabriel takes a moment before lifting his face to look at Jack.

 

“What?” he asks, brows knit with lingering pain. He notices the way Jack’s face turning bright red as he realizes what he apparently just said. Remaining quiet for a moment, Jack opens and closes his mouth a couple of time before speaking again.

 

“I’mgoodatmassages,” he rattles, not looking at Gabriel directly,  eyes fixed on the bluish screen in his hands.

 

The mattress creaks when Gabriel lays flat again, pressing his face against the pillow and closing his tired eyes. The smell of Jack’s scent is musky and strong, soothing in his state.

 

“Sure.” he talks, answer muffled against the pillow.

 

It wouldn’t take long for Gabriel to melt under the touch of Jack’s skillful hands.

 

* * *

 

It goes without saying that Jack, eventually, reaches his limit.

 

Gabriel can see it, the way Jack trails down the corridors, avoiding all contact. Jack insists he is okay, tries to brush off his roommate’s worries, still unable to look into Gabriel’s eyes.

 

Then one night he gets worse, enough for Gabriel to get off bed to look after him.

 

“You’re fine, calm down.” he tries to sooth, cupping Jack’s face; he is cold as ice, pale as a lily. Jack’s whole body trembles on the bed as if hit by a high fever.

 

“I—t hurts.” he mouths with dry lips.

 

“Where?”

 

His teary eyes look everywhere but at Gabriel, as if refusing any contact with him.

 

“Everywhere.”

 

Gabriel looks around, considers calling for help; then remembers the last time the doctors came when one of his roommates went into shock: never. The doctors only came to their rooms to retrieve dead bodies.

 

Because a soldier unable to keep himself alive after the whole program was worthless, but did they know how breakable were them? How fragile?

 

“Goddamn.” Gabriel’s hands turn to fists when he looks back at a pale Jack  trembling like a leaf in the wind. Jack squeezes his eyes shut, pain all over his face, his forehead covered on a thin layer of sweat. “Jack, listen, this won’t kill you, okay?” he strokes his face, leaning over him. “The meds just kicked in, we all got these reactions, I promise.”

 

“How—.” Jack starts, teeth chattering as he speaks, “D—o I make it stop?”

 

The hand holding Jack’s comes to rest on his waist as Gabriel leans over to kiss him. It’s a soft touch that barely lasts a second until Jack jerks away nervously, blood rushing to his cheeks.

 

“Don’t—do that.”

 

“You need to release serotonin to ease the pain.” Gabriel strokes his side, making Jack twitch, visibly oversensitive. “Physical contact helps: touching and kissing. I’ve helped my previous partners, I know it helps.” Gabriel speaks quickly, then slowly realizing how badly Jack reacted to his touch. He fumes, rolling his eyes, “Listen, if you don’t like me—”

 

“I’ve got someone.” Jack cuts in with a whisper, cheeks stained with pink, “At home.”

 

Gabriel bites back a laugh, the edges of his lips curving up. That’s at least unexpected and, at the same time, makes total sense for him. “I see.” his hand leaves Jack’s waist and looks for his hand, fingers interlacing, trying to comfort him. “Sorry.”

 

Staying still, Jack seems able to finally look him in the eye. They stayed like that for a moment that seems to last too long. But it’s when Gabriel makes a gesture of moving away that Jack reacts, pulling him closer to kiss him.

 

The second kiss is as messy as the first one, more teeth than lips. Jack apologizes in a breathy voice, kissing him a third time, as if trying to compensate for his previous bad attempts. Gabriel allows him do as he pleases, still refusing to reciprocate but permitting Jack’s hands to wander around his body. It’s only when Jack drags him into his bed that he stops him to ask:

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Icy blue eyes look at him through tears and fear, just like their first night in this room. A cold gaze, cold as winters at home, yet so charming. Gabriel honestly thought he could get lost in those eyes, in a endless winter.

 

And he would.

 

“No.”

 

* * *

 

When Gabriel wakes up, he is all by himself in Jack’s bed with only the buzzing background noise of the facilities as company. A shaky breath comes to his sensitive ears and he lifts his head from the pillow, just enough to look at the lump snuggled up on the floor.

 

Heavy lidded, he lets out a sigh.

 

“Come up here, Jack.”

 

Jack sits on the floor, giving his back to him and cleaning his face with the back of his hand. He turns to Gabriel and he notices his irritated eyes and the dry trail of tears on his reddened  cheeks.

 

Without asking any questions, Gabriel beckons him, and Jack gets on the bed with him. Jack would never tell him he broke up with his boyfriend. However, Gabriel can tell that happened after Jack starts to spend more recreational time outside.

 

* * *

 

“God, you’re a slut.”

 

Gabriel ducks his head under the spray of water, rubbing the back of his nape. The whispering coming from another shower doesn’t disturb him, used to some soldiers hitting the showers just to release some steam. There must be a group of three, because he hears more than a couple of voices. Moans and shaky breaths echo on the walls, followed by the wet sound of skin clashing against skin.

 

“Do I put a condom on?” the first person asks.

 

“For what? His whole is for public use.” Someone else snickers over a gagging sound, the action coaxing a moan from somewhere “See? He can take it both sides.”

 

“As expected from _SEP’s whore._ ”

 

He turns off the shower before stepping out of his cubicle soaking wet, and walks towards the one next to his. He looks at the group of three, the bodies glistening with sweat moving in unison, a mix of moans and pants. Gabriel is honestly surprised there are just three this time, he heard Jack could take four or five people at the same time.

 

Gabriel approaches them and yanks back the hair of the one fucking Jack’s mouth.

 

“What the—?!” the guy slip from Jack's mouth. 

“Get the fuck out of here,” Gabriel barks as an order, making the other guy behind Jack shudder. They look at each other and do as Gabriel said, perfectly knowing their place. Once they leave the bathroom, Gabriel kneels in front of Jack, holding his chin to properly look at him. “You look like a real mess, you know?” he chides.

 

With quivering irises, Jack tries to focus his gaze on Gabriel. There is a thin thread of spit hanging from his swollen lips and stripes of seed staining his face and hair.

 

“I do,” he breathes, finally looking at Gabriel with the saddest eyes he has ever seen.

The view makes his skin crawl and his heart ache. Not out of jealousy, or envy, but out of guilt. He knew Jack wasn’t the type of person who would mess around with anyone, much less someone he didn’t know or feel something for.

Doing it caused him a tremendous pain.

But know he spent the free time he got ( whenwhen wa pinned to a bed with needles on his arms or training until he passed out) in the bathroom, desperately clinging to men whose name he couldn't even remember, pretending he was at home, being hold by some rascal neighbor he liked since high school, and not being gang banged by a group of men who keep complimenting the way he could handle double penetration and the lack of gag reflex.

 

“Jack,” Gabriel rubs a thumb over Jack’s lip, his voice soft, charming. “Do you wanna go out with me?”

 

The question seems to pull Jack out of his trance; he blinks several times, tilting his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he heard. He was conscious of Gabriel’s feelings and the lack of love in that question.

 

“Yeah.”

 

And yet, he answers without a shred of doubt.

 

Because despite everything, the only thing they had there was each other. As long as they both walked the same path or looked for the same goal. So they accept to cling to each other, ignoring how miserable they could be — _ignoring how miserable they would indeed be_ — but remaining together because Jack thought it was better to be miserable with Gabriel than to search for happiness by himself.

 

That’s what SEP taught him, and that’s something that would remain with him until the beginning of the end.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> You can find me on twitter as @possssum.


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